


how long will i love you?

by a_splash_of_stucky



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Artist Steve Rogers, Artist!Reader, Artist!Steve, Character Death, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Grieving, Reader-Insert, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 04:16:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15856035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_splash_of_stucky/pseuds/a_splash_of_stucky
Summary: Nothing lasts forever, except, perhaps, your love for him.





	how long will i love you?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a writing challenge on Tumblr, using the prompt 'paint tubes'. 
> 
> Some inspiration taken from the ['Over and Over Again'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eiv5aElMZs/) music video, and title is from ['How Long Will I Love You'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an4ySOlsUMY&feature=youtu.be/) by Ellie Goulding. Sorry in advance for the heartbreak, but on a separate note: I'm really proud of how this turned out.

“You need to clean it out,” Wanda says, for the dozenth time in probably as many minutes.

“I don’t  _need_  to do anything—”

“It’ll be cathartic,” she says, “You’ll find closure, you’ll…I dunno, you’ll find those pizza socks that you’ve lost, maybe?”

“I do miss those socks,” you say forlornly.

“So, you’ll clean it out?” she presses.

“I’ll…think about it.”

—

The art studio is exactly how you’d left it, albeit with a thin film of dust clinging to every surface. That is to be expected, given that you haven’t set foot in this room for over two years. As you step into it now, you feel as if you’ve just gone back in time, to a point in your life when things were brighter, easier.

You sigh heavily as you flick on the light switch.

It’s a small, square room, with an enormous corner window. When the blinds are drawn open, sunlight floods into the place, making the studio seem much bigger than it really is. You cross the room quickly to do just that.

You rest your back against the cool glass of the window as you carefully survey the place. The room is in a state of organised chaos, with some semblance of order built into the messiness. An eclectic collection of DIY shelves and IKEA storage units housing your art equipment line the wall beside the door. Some of the drawers are practically overflowing with their contents.

A large desk has been pushed against the wall to your left and on it, there are glass mason jars with paint brushes still inside them. You know that if you were to open the drawers of that desk, you’d find all of your old sketchbooks and a few unfinished pieces of art. Larger equipment like tripods, a drying rack and easels are arranged against the wall opposite the desk. The window takes up most of the fourth wall, so you’ve put no furniture in front of it, in order to not block out the light.

It’s bittersweet, being in here.

You slowly make a circuit around the room, trailing your fingers over the paint-stained and pencil-marked surfaces. His presence fills the room, despite the fact that he has not been in here for the last two years, either. The stuff in here is as much tied to him as it is to you; both of you shared this studio, both of you used these brushes and those easels, both of you used to blast your music as you painted into the wee hours of the night.

It’s difficult enough, having to live in the home that you once shared with him without having to come in here and be harshly reminded of his absence. Nearly eighteen months ago, you moved into a studio-office downtown, so that you could work in a space whose every square inch had not been infused with the essence of his being.

You remember the times when you would open the door to this studio and see him hunched over the desk, new splatters of paint decorating his apron. His tongue would be sticking out of the corner of his mouth and his brows would be furrowed in concentration as he worked on his latest piece. Music would fill the air — something mellow and old-school, something that reminded you of jazz bars and speakeasies.

You’re torn between the urge to preserve the room exactly as it is, and clearing everything out, giving you the opportunity to start afresh.

As you perch yourself on one of the stools, your eyes land on a cardboard box balancing precariously on top of one of the smaller drawer units. You dimly remember dumping it there ages ago, fully intending on coming back to it in a couple of days’ time.

Funny how two days can so suddenly turn into two years.

You cross the room to examine it more closely. The box is exactly how you remember it, black, with the brand name written across the front in simple, clean white text. Hesitantly, like you’re afraid that something might leap out and bite you, you lift up the lid with a single index finger. The paint tubes are still inside, untouched — pristine as the day they came. There are ten of them in all.

In the grief and darkness of the last two years, you’d forgotten about them.

He would not want them to go to waste.

In a sudden burst of motivation, you drag an easel, a small table and a stool over to the window, before rooting around the storage units for a pre-stretched canvas. You grab all the utensils you think you’ll need and don your old, paint-stained apron before sitting down.

You have not put a brush to canvas for a long time, but perhaps, it is time to revisit your roots.

—

You scrub the back of your hand over your face, groaning in frustration when you realise that you’ve probably just smeared blue acrylic across your cheek.

It’s a Friday night and, while most people are ushering in the weekend with booze and parties, you’re stuck in the art department, frantically trying to finish your coursework piece in time for the Monday morning submission deadline. You’re lowkey hating your past-self for being so ambitious and/or being really shitty at time-management, but what’s done is done and your present-self must now deal with the consequences of your own incompetence.

It is at this precise moment that the door to the art studio creaks open and a broad-shouldered, blonde-haired hunk of a man walks in. It takes a moment for you to clock him as Steve Rogers, otherwise known as the guy that you’ve been crushing on for the better part of the last academic year.

He’s wearing a light-grey t-shirt, dark blue jeans and a black bomber that hugs him just right. He’s got a canvas backpack slung casually over one shoulder, and big, square-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. He does a double-take when he notices you, like he’s surprised to find anyone else here, on a Friday night.

“Uh…hey,” he says, waving a hand in greeting.

“Hey yourself,” you reply, straightening up in your seat.

Of all the times for your crush to see you, it had to be when you were wearing your least-flattering pair of sweats and had paint smeared across your cheek, right?

“You’re, uh…you’re Y/N, right?” he asks, as he slowly walks over to you.

“Yep, that’s me. And you’re Steve?”

“Steve Rogers, that’s me,” he says, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He stops beside your table and gives a cursory glance over the mess you’ve got spread across it.

“Coursework?” he guesses, jerking his chin towards your painting-in-progress.

“Yeah,” you sigh.

“Same, I got some things I needed to finish up before I can hand it in,” Steve says. “I gotta admit though, I didn’t think anyone would be in here this late.”

You frown in confusion. “It’s not that late, it’s only like…oh,” you murmur, as you look at the clock hanging over the door.

Steve chuckles. “What time did you think it was?”

“Like…maybe almost nine o’clock?”

“Yeah, and then somehow, you find out that it’s five past midnight, huh?” Steve says, nodding sagely. “Yeah, I’ve been there before.”

You smile wryly. “The struggles of being a student artist, huh?”

“You can say that again,” Steve says, shooting you one of those disarming, carefree grins. “But hey—at least you’re not alone anymore, how much longer are you planning to stay?”

“Uh…” you mumble, as you assess your work and quickly estimate how much more time you’ll need before you can pack up. “I need to get the painting done by tonight, ‘cause I need to go over some of the parts with pencil tomorrow, so…maybe another couple hours?”

“Cool,” he says, as he dumps his stuff onto the table to your left. “I’m probably staying that long too.”

“Cool,” you mutter, despite the fact that internally, you are anything  _but_ cool. You’re a nervous wreck, praying to the heavens above that you don’t make a fool of yourself in Steve’s presence.

Eh, you’ve already got paint on your face — how much worse can it get?

You covertly watch Steve out of the corner of your eye as he pulls out a set of drawing pencils and a sketchpad from his drawer and gets to work. It’s nice, having him there to keep you company. The two of you make small talk every now and then, but for the most part, you’re both focused on getting your work done as fast as possible.

Sometime after the one-hour mark, Steve brings up his Spotify account and puts some music on in the background, to keep you going for the home stretch. You’re unfamiliar with the artist, but the music is calming and bluesy, enough to occupy the silence, but not too much to make you lose your focus.

You hunker down and finish off the rest of your painting in record time, sitting back triumphantly as you appraise the nearly-completed piece. You need to let it dry before you can add in the last bits of pencil shading, and you still need to mount it into a proper frame, but you’re confident that you can get all of that done by Monday morning.

Steve finishes his work just as you start cleaning off your brushes and palettes in the sink. He comes over and dumps his stuff into the sink beside yours, before turning on his faucet.

“Productive?” he asks, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the running water.

“Yeah. But I’m really tired now.”

“Yeah, well — it’s almost 2AM, that’s kinda expected,” he says, laughing gently. “You live far from here?”

You shake your head. “Nah, just on the other side of campus.”

“Oh really? I’m near there too, I can walk you home, if you’d like.” he offers.

“No, it’s fine, I don’t wanna bother you.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah! I’m just gonna walk through all the campus buildings, I’ll be okay.”

He opens his mouth, about to press his point further, but winds up shrugging his shoulders and dropping the topic instead. You finish cleaning your brushes, then place them and your mixing palettes into the appropriate drying racks. When you turn around, you find Steve’s eyes staring directly at you. He startles and turns around quickly, the slight flush on his cheeks making it obvious that he was just checking you out.

Wait — he was  _checking you out_?

Are you imagining things? Could it be? Holy shit.

Steve is resolutely ignoring you, focusing intently on making his brushes as clean as physically possible. You could either confront him, or live with the agony of not knowing what happens next for the rest of your life.

You decide to bite the bullet.

You clear your throat loudly to get his attention. “Is something wrong?” you ask.

He frowns. “Uh, no? Why would anything be wrong?”

“Well…you were just looking at me funny…did I forget something?”

Steve’s eyes widen in panic. “Oh! Oh,  _that_  — no, nothing’s wrong, you just…you got something on your face,” he says, gesturing vaguely with one hand. He clears his throat. “I uh…I can get it for you? If you’d like?”

“Sure,” you reply, rolling one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug.

You watch, strangely nervous, as Steve turns the faucet off, dumps his brushes into a holder to dry and wipes his palms on his jeans before stepping closer. Your breathing hitches in your throat as he gently cups your chin and brushes his thumb over your cheek in a featherlight caress. He’s close enough that you can feel the heat radiating off his body, and the warmth of his breath on your skin.

Quick as a flash, he ducks down and presses his lips to yours — a touch that is gone as suddenly as it came.

His cheeks are flushed a scarlet red when he pulls away.

“Um…sorry, I — yeah,” he mumbles.

You blink rapidly, trying to get your thoughts in order. Did—did that just happen?

“Did you just kiss me?”

His blush deepens, if that were possible. It spreads down his neck and disappears beneath the collar of his shirt — a part of you is curious to find out if he’s a full-body blusher.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

You chew on your bottom lip as you take in the situation. Steve’s body is still curled towards yours, and the faint, pleasant scent of his cologne fills your nostrils, making it hard to think. He hasn’t taken his hand off your cheek; beneath his palm, your skin tingles with anticipation.

It’s now or never. Carpe diem, and all that crap.

“That was…something,” you murmur, as your tongue darts out to wet your bottom lip.

“Yeah,” Steve breathes, his gaze flicking from your lips to your eyes, and back again. “It was.”

“I—uh, I think we might need to do that again. So that I can figure out what the ‘something’ was. For science,” you add hastily, as the corner of your lips quirk up into a half-smile.

His lips pull into a grin, one that threatens to outshine the sun and makes your heart do an excited little flutter. It’s a smile filled with hope and promise, and it’s taking everything in you not to lean over and kiss him stupid.  

“The start of something new, maybe?” he suggests.

You bark out a surprised laugh. “Oh, do  _not_  start quoting High School Musical at me, or this’ll turn into an impromptu sing-and-dance number real quick, I promise you that.”

Steve throws his head back and laughs, even as he leans in closer, curling one hand around your jaw and the other around the back of your neck.

“Anything can happen,” he sings, softly, and horribly off-key, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “When you take a chance.”

“You’re such a dork,” you breathe, as you surge forward and crush your lips together.

—

You’re painting aimlessly, putting paint on canvas merely for the sake of it.

Since his passing, you’ve tried to keep your distance from any and all types of paints; there are just too many memories associated with him. Painting doesn’t have the same allure to you as it once did. Instead, you’ve developed your skills in the world of digital art, favouring Photoshop and cameras and high-tech gadgets over traditional media. Between the two of you, he’d always been the more-skilled painter, anyway. Now, with you being so out-of-practice, a brush has never felt more foreign in your hands.

The colours on your canvas are disjointed and discordant, bold splashes of red juxtaposed by sickly greens and dark expanses of blue. You feel as if you’ve forgotten everything you’ve learnt; how to mix colours, how to dilute the paint to get lighter washes, which colours work well together.

You have no direction in mind, with this piece.

You’re not happy with where things are going, but at least you’re reacquainting yourself with your brushes. You hadn’t realised how much you missed their weight in your fingers, the satisfying give of the bristles as you press them to the canvas. Surprisingly enough, the muscles in your arm and hand still remember how they should move to best lay down the colour. Your fingers are covered in specks of paint and similar flecks of colour now adorn your light-wash jeans.

Despite your best efforts, this piece is becoming increasingly unsalvageable. Layer after layer of colour simply adds to the dissonance in front of you.

A part of you just wants to quit.

You can hear his voice in the back of your head, reassuring and encouraging and comforting in a way that only he could be.

 _Stop over thinking it, sweetheart. You’re_ good,  _you know how to paint. Don’t use your head, just…listen to your heart, paint what you love._

It clicks, then.

He’s been kept alive in your memory for so long, perhaps it is time to share his greatness with the rest of the world.

You stand up, hurrying across the room to get a fresh canvas and a new jar of water. You can see the painting taking form in your mind, with its golden tones, simple brushwork and muted palette. You push your unfinished piece to the side and position your new canvas on the easel, before dragging your stool closer and picking up a clean brush.

You have a portrait to paint.

—

You and Steve are walking down the street hand-in-hand, weaving through the throng of last-minute Christmas shoppers. It is the first holiday season you’re celebrating as a couple, and you’re excited to spend a cosy weekend at home, trading little presents and gentle kisses under the warmth of the covers.

“I fucking hate crowds,” Steve grumbles, “Everyone’s so goddamn rude.”

You laugh, threading your arm around his and pressing your cheek to his bicep, still warm despite the chilly winter air. “Let’s hurry up and get you your hot chocolate, then, before we get crushed to death by all these people.”

He grins, patting your hand affectionately. “You’re filled with great ideas, aren’t you?”

Just then, a store that you’ve never seen before catches your eye. Eager to investigate further, you tug Steve over to the shop window, making him yelp in surprise.

It’s an art supply store — a fancy one, if the decor is anything to go by. The display boasts an impressive array of beautifully-crafted easels, handmade brushes, premium colour pencils and, most notably, a Winsor and Newton 10-colour gouache paint set.

The sleek box is front-and-centre of the display. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the elegant white tubes, with the simple Winsor and Newton logo emblazoned across them. A sheet of paper beside the box holds a swatch of each colour; they look positively dreamy.

“They’re gorgeous, aren’t they?” Steve murmurs appreciatively.

You hum in agreement. “Shame you’d need to drop nearly 90 bucks to get them.”

“I’ll buy them for you,” Steve promises, turning to face you. “I mean—not now, obviously, but one day.”

You smile as you wind your arms around his torso and tip your head back to look up at him. “Yeah? Once your pieces have made it into the Guggenheim and the Tate, you mean?”

“Exactly,” he says, grinning as he bends down to press a kiss to your chilly, slightly-chapped lips.

“I’m fucking freezing,” you mumble, as he pulls away.

In response, he wraps his arms around your shoulders, smushing your face into his torso in an effort to warm you up.

“My little icicle,” he says fondly.

“That…that sounds vaguely sexual,” you say, your voice slightly muffled.

Steve snorts, gently pushing you back so that he can tuck you under his arm. “Get your mind out of the goddamn gutter,  _please_.”

“Fine,” you grumble, giving one last longing look at the set of paint tubes before the two of you resume walking. “Hot chocolate?” you prompt.

“Hot chocolate,” Steve agrees.

—

It is strangely bittersweet, using these paint tubes.

In your mind’s eye, you see his slim, strong fingers wielding a brush expertly, the backs of his hand and knuckles covered in splotches of paint. He was so confident whenever he mixed his colours, knowing instinctively how much he needed from each tube to create the exact shade he was looking for. He had an intuition, a deep-seated knowledge that you’ve always admired.

You personally had never reached quite the same level of skill that he had attained, but you never envied him for it. He had his strengths, he had his weakness and you, likewise.

With this piece, you have a much clearer idea of where you’re going. The painting is taking shape before your very eyes, a creation that is coming straight from your heart. You are literally pouring a part of your soul onto the canvas, exposed and vulnerable, for all the world to see.

As the brush glides across the canvas and deposits streaks of colour in its wake, you feel as if you’re functioning on autopilot. Your brain has taken a backseat and your heart is now running the show, painting what it loves dearly and longs to see. You have no reference besides the memories in your head, the ones that have been your sweetest grief in the most difficult period of your life.

You might not have the same knowledge of colours and composition that he had, but what you lack in skill you make up for through sheer force of will. You don’t allow yourself to question your actions or second-guess your decisions; you  _know_  how to mix the exact shade of golden amber for his hair, the precise colour of blue for his eyes, the perfect shade of pink for his lips.

You’re moving on instinct. Your hand and arm and fingers map out the planes and curves of his face, the slope of his shoulders, the breadth of his torso. His image is burnished into your memory, just as his name has etched itself onto your heart.

He may be gone from this world, but you promise yourself that you’ll never let him fade from your memory.

—

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Steve says, as he drops a package wrapped in brown paper into your lap.

“What’s this?” you ask, examining it in your hands as you sit up straighter. Steve bites his lip and shrugs as he comes to sit beside you on the couch.

“Open it,” he says simply. His hands are clasped in his lap and he is twisting his wedding ring around his finger with his right hand — a nervous tick that he’s recently developed.  

“But—Stevie, you’ve already got me a birthday present!” you protest.

“I know, I know…this is like…an early Christmas present. Or a late Christmas present, however you wanna call it.”

You narrow your eyes in suspicion. “I thought we don’t  _do_ Christmas presents?”

“Then, well—this is…oh, for fuck’s sake, just  _open it_ , will you?”

“Okay, okay,” you mutter, hastily peeling the tape off.

As the wrapper falls away, your eyes are met with a plain black cardboard box, with Winsor and Newton written across the top in simple white font. From the weight and size of the box, you have a feeling you know what this present might be.

“Steve,” you breathe, as you turn to face your husband. “Is this—”

“Just open it!” he begs, “I’m literally dying from the suspense.”

You laugh, despite yourself, rushing to peel away the protective plastic wrapping that encases the box. Tentatively, you lift up the lid to peek inside, gasping when you set eyes on ten tubes of gouache paint, each one pristine and elegant and so bloody beautiful, just waiting for you to use them.

“Holy shit,” you breathe, putting the lid to one side before running your fingers over the tubes reverently, lips parted in awe. These paints are the stuff of legends; your hands are itching to play around with them.

“ _Stevie_ ,” you whisper, at a loss for words.

“Do you like them?” he asks, voice heartbreakingly timid.

You nod your head vigorously as you lean towards him, clumsily wrapping an arm around the back of his neck as you crush your lips together, all whilst trying to balance the box on your laps, so that the tubes of paint don’t tumble to the floor. The kiss is clumsy and uncoordinated and you accidentally nip his bottom lip too hard, but that only makes it more perfect.

“I love it,” you whisper fervently, as tears of joy prick at the corner of your eyes. “I love them so much, thank you, honey, I love you.”

“I love you too,” he says breathlessly, strong arms snaking around your body to tug you closer. “God, honey, I love you so much. “

As amazing and unexpected as the paints are, what’s more significant — what’s making tears stream from your eyes — is that, after all these years, Steve still  _remembers_  how much you’ve been wanting them.

These paint tubes — yeah, okay, they’re paint tubes, but they’re also  _more_  than that. Your heart is on the verge of bursting from all the meaning and significance behind this gift. Painting — and art more broadly — has been a cornerstone of your relationship from the outset, weaving its way into every single significant occasion that you’ve shared, and all the little moments in between. These paint tubes symbolise how far you’ve come as a couple and hopefully, how far you have yet to go.

—

Who would’ve thought that just two days later, he’d be caught in a freak car accident that would ultimately steal him from your grasp? Who would’ve thought that you’d be left a widow, before you’ve even hit your fifties? Who would’ve thought that you’d turn into a shell of the person you used to be, passing through day after bleak, monotonous day without a purpose to guide you?

Life is achingly brief. The things that we take for granted can be taken away in the blink of an eye, leaving us bereft and lost.

Nothing lasts forever; that is the cruel, unfair truth.

You’re allowed to curse and sob and scream with anger, frustration and sadness, but you can’t change the rulings of fate. What’s done is done, and you can either let the subsequent current of sorrow drown you, or rise above it, stronger than who you were before.

For the past two years, you’ve been drowning under the weight of your heartbreak, which has been a crushing burden on your shoulders. It’s been a struggle, just to survive.

But maybe—

Maybe it’s time you tried kicking a little harder, tried to break the surface of these dark and murky waters, to see if you truly are strong enough to rise above.

It’s what he would’ve wanted from you.

You put the final few finishing touches on your painting before setting down your brush and standing up, groaning as you stretch your arms over your head. Your bones crack and pop as you move your body around, your muscles stiff from being in the same position for so long. Outside, the last rays of the dying sun paint the sky in vivid shades of red, pink and orange. You grimace — the fact that the sun is setting tells you that you’ve been working on this painting for at least three hours.

The loud rumble in your stomach serves to reinforce your conclusion.

You take a step back to study your finished piece: a painting of him, from the torso up.

Despite the fact that you’re a little rusty, the resemblance of the portrait to his likeness is striking. It is a painting of him as he has been immortalised in your mind, an image of him as you’d loved him best.

You’ve painted him with his head angled slightly to the right, frozen in mid-turn. His rosy pink lips are parted, the corners pulling up in the beginnings of one of his pure, tender smiles. His bright blue eyes are glinting with mischief, the corners crinkling with joy.

You’re proud to have been able to capture the sharp lines of his cheekbones and jaw, the dusting of freckles across his nose, the ever-present flush of pink that sits high on his cheeks. His blonde hair is slightly tousled and falling over his forehead, the way it used to look like in the early mornings, when his skin was still sleep-warmed and his voice was low and throaty.

You’ve painted him in one of those plain white t-shirts that he used to love, the material hugging his broad shoulders and ridiculously perky chest.

To emphasise the golden shine of his hair, you’ve kept the background dark and simple, abstract strokes of brown slapped onto the canvas with a dry brush. It had been one of his favourite techniques to use to achieve texture whenever he was making expanses of flat colours, and you’re pleased to have incorporated it into your work; it makes it more Steve, somehow.

As a final touch, you’ve used some amber and white paint to make a thin ring behind his head, feathering the paint slightly with a small offset spatula. The end result is that you’ve created a pale, ghostly halo.

 _Angel boy,_  you think absentmindedly.

You gaze upon the fruits of your labour with wistful nostalgia hanging heavy in your heart. Though it saddens you to have been made acutely aware of his absence in your life, the process has been strangely therapeutic. You haven’t cleaned out the room as you’d promised Wanda, but maybe, you’ve done something better with your time, and found closure in your own roundabout way.

You still miss him terribly and you’ll probably continue to miss him, for the rest of your days, but—

To miss someone is to have loved someone and that, surely, is better than to not have loved at all. Nothing lasts forever, except, perhaps, your love for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Reblog this on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/177600965085/how-long-will-i-love-you/)
> 
> Comments and kudos make me smile :D


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